Sometimes I think if you are after forty you should not come to live to a different country - chances of psychological adoption of new ways of life are too slim. And life will be too stressful for you. As somebody said, 'if you cannot live better in your new place, what's the point of uprooting and coming there?'
I know for sure that if I stayed in my old country and put as much effort to achieving something over there as I put in here just to survive, I would definitely could be living a better life, more satisfying, more accomplished. I am not sure, but may be even less stressful. My parents died there, in my old country, and I managed to attend only my mom's funeral. I never visited them when they were sick and lonely and needed me most. I never had time nor money. Stupid thing money, it's so hard to be working poor. You are always in denial of everything. This I cannot afford, that is too expensive, I can live without this or that. But life passes by so fast, and older you get - faster it slips away. Less and less energy, more often you just want to rest, but you have to get up and go - day after day, after day... groundhog day if you know what I mean.
In my old country it was easy to be poor, because everybody had the same life style as you. Here it's different. People have nice houses, drive new cars (even if they are in debt up to their ears). They don't want (or cannot afford) to look unsuccessful or poor. You are supposed to have a car if you are professional, and a cellphone, and no one asks you if you can afford this or not. After so many years living in Canada with thousands in debts behind my back, I refuse to have a car now and my cell is just for emergencies with minimal pay as you go plan. I do not want to use a credit card with 20% interest on it and do not understand why our society wants me to live over my limits. One simply cannot live on a min payment job and have a car without debts. And public transportation is more or less adequate only in big cities like Toronto. As I said - more or less. After 7 pm good luck to wait for a bus.
And by the way, why do I have to pay bank money every time I use my own money? They should pay me for that, not me. Well, never mind banks, but to have such inadequate public transportation is just not fair. If you live in a small town and you don't have a job, you must go somewhere else to look for work, and if there is no bus or train to take you there, what you are supposed to do? Steal a car? Or just give up and sit on welfare all your life, complaining or getting sick from cheap/bad nutrition and drugs and eventually getting disability for life ( a little more in terms of money).
In Canada without a car you are stuck in a big city, you feel like an invalid, like a half-person, as if something wrong with you. I have only two choices. I can live in central places, in big city apartments that are close to main bus routes, apartments that are noisy at night because you hear that constant clicking, clanking and tooting of a big city that never really sleeps. Or I can move to suburbia where there is no or very little buses, where you can walk nowhere because everything is too far for walking. Again, basement is the only thing you can rent there if you can afford it of course. And then what? You'll be so isolated from everything and everybody there that you definitely have to have a car!
Right now I have a choice. I can either close my window at night to cut out that constant background humming of traffic and sleep in a hot stuffy bedroom or I can leave my window opened but then I have to listen to that disturbing big city music. When I am lucky to be so tired that I do not care anymore then I do just that - I leave my window open. One day I will be able to abandon this big city for good but not now, not yet. I have to support myself, help my kids and big city is the only option for me. So many ways to make you feel like a half-person, so many ways...
